


The Savior and the Villain

by Sotheylived



Series: Follower Appreciation [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, News Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sotheylived/pseuds/Sotheylived
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David should be used to Emma being in the limelight by now. She's been a public figure for years, but when the media begins talking more about her personal life and less about the cases she solves, things get complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Savior and the Villain

**The Savior spotted with Captain Hook at Grizinski murder site. Could he be behind these gruesome killings?**

David puts down the paper when Mary Margaret enters the kitchen. She steals a slice of bacon off his plate before pouring herself a cup of coffee. When she spots the headline she frowns. “Have you heard from Emma lately?“ 

David shakes his head. Lately it seems like the only way he knows what Emma is up to is from the news. He knows he shouldn’t push, but she’s retreated back into her shell after the whole Walsh debacle and he worries about her. 

"Maybe I’ll invite her for dinner Sunday?” David suggests. He wonders if the promise of a home cooked meal will be enough to convince her to stop by.

Mary Margaret hums. “That’s a good idea.”

* * *

 

Sunday afternoon he has to run to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things they’ll need for dinner when he sees a tabloid - one that he usually avoids for the wild rumors it spreads about superheroes and celebrities alike. On the cover is a blown up grainy image of Emma and a man. Their backs are to the camera and Emma’s hand is wrapped around the man’s wrist. There’s a glint of metal in the pixelated picture that could be a hook. On the bottom corner of the page, in big bold letters it says:

  ** _Could the Savoir be dating a Villain?_**  

 David buys the magazine. 

When Emma arrives that evening for dinner David wants to ask her what exactly is going on between her and Hook, but he bites his tongue. It was hard enough as it is to get her to agree to stop worrying about saving the world for an hour; he’s not going to add an interrogation on top of that.

Apparently he has no self-control.

“Was Hook behind the Grizinski murders?” he blurts completely out of the blue halfway through the meal. 

Emma turns to him and there’s a look on her face that he can’t read. Less than a second later the look is gone and she’s leaning back in her chair with a pose that’s just a hair too casual to be natural. “No, he was helping me with the investigation." 

"Captain Hook was  _helping_  you?” Mary Margaret asks incredulously. 

“But he’s a villain,” David finds himself saying before he can think better of it. 

Emma rolls her eyes at the pair of them and takes a swig of her drink and if David knows his sister at all, he knows she’s wishing it was something stronger than wine.

“He  _was_ a villain. He’s trying to - he just - he doesn’t want to be that anymore. When he heard about half the kids from the Grizinski Orphanage being murdered he knew one of his old associates was behind it. He stuck his neck out to help me.”

“Sticking his neck out isn’t too noble when the man can’t die,” David grumbles. He doesn’t like the way she sounds when she’s talking about him.  

“He’s not immortal,” Emma says and she sounds every bit the exasperated teenager she did when she was placed with him and his mother more than a decade ago. It makes him want to smile. “He can die, he’s just really good at surviving." 

"If he can die,” Mary Margaret says, “then what’s his superpower? I always thought it was invincibility." 

"He doesn’t have one.”

David wants to know how a man that has no power whatsoever becomes a supervillain, but he knows his sister and if he keeps pursuing this line of questioning it’ll be a month before he sees her again. She pushes her chair back from the table and moves to stand, right on cue.

“Stay Emma,” he says, “we won’t bother you about Hook anymore." 

"Killian,” Emma says.

A flush immediately blooms on her cheeks. 

“What?”

“His name -” Emma clears her throat, looking anywhere but at them. "His name is Killian." 

Mary Margaret doesn’t comment, but she hums and shares a look with David.

Emma stays for dessert. 

* * *

” ** _Is the Savior teaming up with a villain?_** “ A newscaster says when David turns on the TV two weeks later. It’s not by any means the first time he’s turned on the TV and they’re talking about his sister, but it seems that these past couple weeks it’s been less about the cases she solves and more about  _her._ It’s weird. 

"Hook has been spotted at the last three crime scenes the Savior has visited,”the newscaster, Sydney - David thinks his name is - says. “By all appearances it seems that the pair is working  _together._ Now I don’t know what the Savior is thinking, if she is indeed pairing up with such a notorious villain.”

David harrumphs, Emma can do what she damn well pleases. 

“Captain Hook has faded from the spotlight in recent years, but the first reports of the villain came in over ten years ago. Originally it seemed that perhaps he would be just the hero needed to take on the Dark One.” Sydney looks down at the papers on his desk before his gaze flicks back up to the camera. “But apparently the pressure was too much. One day he snapped and began killing anyone or anything that got in his way of killing the Dark One. 

"Initially his super power was unclear, but after taking a knife to the back, drowning and being poisoned, it became obvious. With the Dark One’s killings becoming less frequent until they eventually stopped in March of last year, Captain Hook has been MIA as well. One has to wonder what he wants and if he is really just trying to reclaim some of his former glory by working on the right side of the law once more. If I were the Savior, I wouldn’t trust Hook further than I could throw him. 

"I’m Sydney Glass with Storybrooke Report News, your source for local, dependable news. Stay tuned." 

David clicks off the TV, no longer in the mood to watch. He pulls out his phone and gives Emma a call. Emma can take care of herself, but maybe David should meet this guy just in case. Her super power never works on people she’s close with - or people she will be close with - and he doesn’t want a repeat of what happened with Walsh.

Emma picks up after the third ring and agrees, albeit begrudgingly, to ask Hook to meet with David and Mary Margaret for dinner at Granny’s. David considers the minimal amount a groaning a win. 

He and Mary Margaret arrive early to Granny’s and secure a table in the back corner. There’s no head turning, no stares or people taking completely obvious "stealth” photos when Emma walks in alone a few moments later. David is thankful, not for the first time, that Walsh was incapacitated before he could spill Emma’s secret identity to the world. 

“Hey,” Emma says, plopping down onto the bench and scooting over to the seat across from Mary Margaret. 

“Where’s Ho- Killian?” Mary Margaret asks. 

David loves his wife, but the woman cannot keep a secret. He’s honestly surprised she hasn’t spilled Emma’s secret yet. 

Emma glances up from the menu, though David has a hard time believing she actually needs to look at it since she orders a grilled cheese with onion rings every time. “He’s meeting us here. Please don’t grill him too much okay?" 

Mary Margaret smiles but makes no promises and David has to bite back a laugh. He reaches a hand out to squeeze hers beneath the table. A few minutes later the waitress comes by to take their orders and David doesn’t miss the fact that Emma is able to order for Hook without hesitation. 

The bell above the door chimes a moment later and Emma waves someone over. David turns around to see the man who must be Hook. He knows it takes a great deal of trust for a superhero to reveal their secret identity, and the man’s already won a few points in his book by not refusing to meet them without his identity hidden.

Hook is nothing like what David expected. He scratches behind his ear and ducks his head while he approaches the table. 

"Hey Swan,” he says when he gets within earshot, taking the empty seat beside Emma. 

“David, Mary Margaret,” Emma says firmly, as if daring them to comment on the fact that the dark haired man is leather clad from head to toe and wearing dark eye liner. “This is Killian. Killian, Mary Margaret and David,” Emma says gesturing between the three of them. 

While Emma may be the more observant one in the family, David isn’t blind. Killian settles into his seat and his arm rests on the back of the booth, prosthetic hand - not hook, David notices - resting just above Emma’s shoulder. Though Killian teases Emma, and she rolls her eyes at him, David - with a none too subtle elbow to the ribs from Mary Margaret - notices the line of their bodies, pressed together from the shoulder down. And he certainly notices the look on Emma’s face when Killian takes his arm out from behind her when their food arrives. Killian steals an onion ring off Emma’s plate and is met with only a halfhearted slap to the wrist, something that would cause him to lose a hand. Killian shifts half of his fries onto Emma’s plate without any prompting and David’s eyes flick between the two of them.  

 Sure, they may be bickering throughout the meal, but their body language tells a different story. And when they get up to leave, both Emma and Killian pull hand and prosthetic accordingly out from beneath the table and David’s hit with the sudden realization that they may have been holding hands. 

When he shakes Killian’s hand as they leave, he can’t seem to reconcile the villain he’s heard about on the news with the man before him and he wonders idly, if Emma’s mistaken and they aren’t the same person at all.

* * *

Less than a week later David is out with Killian on the man’s boat, and with the pleasantly salty breeze blowing through his hair, he can’t find it in himself to feel guilty for coercing Emma into giving him Killian’s number. The ship rocks beneath them, and while David wobbles a bit unsteadily on deck, Killian moves with the practiced ease of a sailor. 

“So,” David says, grabbing onto the rail when a particularly large wave knocks into them, “you’ve switched teams?" 

Killian smirks at David and he flushes at his own unintentional innuendo. 

 "I’ve switched back to the side I started on,” Killian says, taking his hand off the wheel to scratch at his ear. “It just took me a while." 

David finds people are always more willing to talk when they’re occupied with something, and when Killian has both hand and prosthetic on the wheel with his eyes on the horizon, David speaks again. 

"Why did you become a villain in the first place?" 

Killian looks at David out of the corner of his eye before glancing back out to sea. "At first the Dark One was the only person who was supposed to get hurt.” Killian shrugs, though the movement is stilted and forced. “Someone I loved ended up dead because of him, and I got - I got careless because of that. It didn’t matter who got hurt as long as the bastard -” Killian takes a deep breath and shakes his head. 

“So why are you trying to be a hero now?” David says bluntly, he needs to know that Killian has Emma’s back and isn’t going to screw her over when the opportunity presents itself.

Killian turns to face David and meets his gaze unflinchingly. “Maybe I just needed reminding that I could.”

David holds his gaze and after a moment, nods. 

* * *

Two weeks later, David gets a text from Mary Margaret while they’re both at work. It’s a link to the Storybrooke Reporter online.  

**_The Savior is dating Captain Hook: A source close to the couple confirms_ **

David reads the article in shock. He knows, he  _knows_ never to believe the tabloids - but even David has to admit that they make a pretty convincing case. There are photos of the pair of them at crime scenes, standing a bit too close for friends, and way too close for reluctant allies. There’s that grainy cell phone photo of them maybe holding hands that was on the cover of the tabloid a couple weeks ago, and of course there’s the “anonymous source” who swears that the couple is indeed dating and impossibly happy. 

David scrolls down to the bottom of the article. It’s been shared 218 times and has a ton of comments.

**@Storybrooke4eva says:**  Oh my gosh! I’m soooo happy for her!! The Savior always seems so sad, you know? And I could totally tell that she was like, way happier the past couple weeks. Savior I love you <3333   P.S. if you can check out my page - 

Expand  **17 comments**

**@CrocodileSmile says:**  Wow, so disappointed in the Savior. To believe I used to like that “hero” smh. She’s clearly gone off the deep end. What the h*ll is she doing teaming up with a  _villain????_

               **Reply**  from  **@Saviorsnumberone:** Hello???? Where have u been ppl change. Hes helping the heros now clerly he’s a good guy

               **Reply**  from  **@21runs:**  This is the f*@%ing government’s problem. This is what happens when they try to infridge upon are rights - [This rest of this comment has been deleted due to length and irrelevance to the topic at hand. If you would like to government impact on the socialization of superheroes please visit our heroes, zeros and their political impact discussion board]

Expand **68 comments**

 

**@JamesSlayer says:**  [This comment has been redacted for violating our terms and conditions] 

Expand  **34 comments**

 

David pulls his phone out and dials Emma’s number before he even finishes reading. She picks up on the fourth ring, slightly breathless with a cacophony of voices in the background. 

“You’re dating  _Hook?!"_

"Hi David, I’m fine thanks for asking,” Emma says drolly. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” David continues. He knows he’s being rude but he is unable to stop himself. 

“Because I knew you’d react like this,” she says with a groan. A moment later the background noises grow muffled. “And we aren’t - it’s not like that. We aren’t actually dating." 

"Don’t lie to me Emma,” David says and  _god,_ after so many years he forgets quite how deep rooted her distrust is, but still - he’s her brother, that should count for something. “Just because I don’t have a super power doesn’t mean that I can’t tell when my own sister is lying to me." 

"I’m not - 

” _Bullshit_ ,“ David interrupts. 

” _Fuck,_  calm down David,“ Emma says, "can I just get a sentence out? Please.” Emma pauses as if she’s waiting for him to interrupt. When he doesn’t, she continues. “I’m not dating Killian okay? It’s a publicity thing Aurora from the Superhero Coalition suggested when Hook expressed interest in switching sides. They thought it would make the transition easier. If the Savior could accept he was a hero then it’d make the public more willing to accept it." 

"So why did you agree to do it?” David asks. He can practically hear her shrug through the line. 

“I don’t know,” Emma says on a sigh. “Killian had been helping out with a couple cases before anyone suggested we pretend to date and there were already rumors spreading about us. It just made sense for it to be me and not someone like Tink or something. Plus Aurora thought it would be a good way to humanize me since people seem to think I’m some sort of emotionless robot. She leaked the story to the Storybrooke Reporter on purpose. Though why I need to be more humanized to save the city is beyond me so…” Emma trails off and David is stuck processing what she’s just said. 

“So you aren’t dating?” he asks dumbly. 

“Ugh,” Emma says, “No we aren’t dating. Did you honestly not get anything else from what I just said?" 

David shrugs, forgetting for a moment that Emma can’t see him. "Are you still coming to dinner this weekend?" he says, changing the subject.

"Yeah I’m coming,” Emma says, “and hey, David?" 

"Yeah?" 

"You can’t tell anyone that Killian and I aren’t really dating, okay?" 

* * *

That weekend Emma isn’t alone when she arrives to the loft. Killian enters behind her with a sheepish grin aimed at David. 

"Is there room for one more?” he asks. 

David smiles and pats him on the shoulder, if it’s a little more rough than need be, who’s to know. He ushers them both into the apartment. David walks back over to the kitchen and finishes chopping up the last of the vegetables for the salad as Emma and Killian perch on bar stools to watch. 

“Do you need any help?” Emma asks as Mary Margaret pulls the chicken from the oven. 

Mary Margaret turns to David to share a grin, but before either of them can say anything about how she’d be more likely to burn the place down than to help - Killian beats them to it. 

“I think they’d prefer the food be actually edible love,” Killian says with a smirk. 

Emma punches him in the arm, but there’s a smile twitching at her lips. 

“It’s okay Emma,” Mary Margaret says, “we’re just about done here if you two want to go ahead and sit down at the table." 

David watches them closely throughout the meal, but they act the same way they have been ever since he met Killian. Killian makes a few thinly veiled innuendos, Emma rolls her eyes and bumps her shoulder into his a couple of times. Maybe it is only for publicity after all.

After dinner Mary Margaret wants to show Emma the antique chest she just bought that they keep stored in the unused upstairs bedroom. David goes with her upstairs to bring it down. The low murmur of voices fades as David and Mary Margaret climb the stairs. 

David doesn’t know why Emma couldn’t come up here to see the chest, since the thing is quite heavy and he only  _just_  brought it up here the other day, but before he can move to lift up the chest Mary Margaret grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him further into the room. 

"Why’d you tell me they are fake dating?” she asks, slapping him on the shoulder. 

“Ow,” David says, rubbing the spot she hit, more out of habit than pain. “They  _are_ fake dating. Emma told me; it’s just for publicity." 

Mary Margaret snorts, "Please, they couldn’t take their eyes off each other all night. Emma is never casual with her affection. There’s no way she would have agreed to pretend to date him unless she _wanted_ to." 

David hums thoughtfully; Mary Margaret does have a good point. 

"Plus,” she adds, looking past him over the rail into the downstairs, “they’re making out." 

"What?!” David half shouts, turning around and almost immediately wishing he hadn’t. 

Killian’s arms are wrapped around Emma, pulling her close. Her hands are in his hair with an almost white knuckled grip. Their faces are pressed up together and it leaves no doubt as to what exactly they are doing.

David runs to the stairs of the loft and begins stomping down noisily. When David reaches the bottom of the stairs the pair spring apart guiltily. David scoffs. He doesn’t know what they’re doing, but there is absolutely nothing fake about it.


End file.
